Yoga is to dance without a reason

The following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Acharya Prashant (AP): You will see that I’m repeatedly stressing on Krishna as the demolisher, on Krishna as someone who not only does not accept our prevalent definitions of right-wrong, true and false, humility, authority, right action, non-violence but, in fact, unabashedly and actively demolishes them. It is one thing to come up with a realized version of the same old stuff, and it is totally another thing to come up with something that is totally fresh, original, and unprecedented. That’s what Krishna is.

When Krishna deviates from the established definition and concept of something, it is not a minor deviation, it is not an incremental change, it is not a little bit of correction — it is a total explosion. We cannot even say that it is a 180-degree turn. We cannot even say that Krishna speaks the opposite of what we have usually heard. Because even if we say that Krishna stands totally against our concepts, we are still somehow relating Krishna to our own stand; we are still saying that Krishna is giving us another concept that is opposed to our concept, and thereby related to our concept.

So, it’s neither a minor deviation nor a major deviation, and not even a total deviation. It is a dimensionally different space into which Krishna takes us. I repeat it’s a dimensionally different space into which Krishna takes us.

So, yesterday and the day before, we looked at a few Yoga verses. The clarity on Yoga that Krishna is bringing to us cannot be had unless one is prepared to totally give up that definition which had been resting and established in our mind. If we do not give that up, we won’t be able to go to space, to the dimension Krishna is calling us to. ‘Demolition’ is the word, not ‘deviation’. Demolition, not deviation; dissolution, not development.

We’ll enter the next verse with the care that we do not look at it as coming from our own established knowledge. If we do that, then Krishna, Yoga, Gita, all will elude us.

कर्मण्यकर्म यः पश्येदकर्मणि च कर्म यः।

स बुद्धिमान् मनुष्येषु स युक्तः कृत्स्नकर्मकृत्।।4.18।।

karmaṇyakarma yaḥ…